I love a good party and I can celebrate the pants off of just about anything.  Planning details, crafting, having our rooms filled with family and friends, baking, the last hurrah hustle and bustle before guests arrive, favors, memories…all of it.

At the heart of a good party is pure and simple celebration. This acknowledgement that hey – we’re here, we’re blessed, life may not be perfect but God is good so why not get together and share joy?  There’s pain, hurt, sorrow, sin and sickness everywhere you look.  But guess what? There’s also beauty, love, connection, fun and little girls turning one everywhere you look too.

This post is a little overdue but I thought a birthday party breakdown would be fun.  I enjoy gleaning online resources, links and tutorials from others, so I thought I’d share the love. Part of my motivation is purely selfish so that when the next party rolls around I can remember where I found those straws…and how to make tissue pom poms…so here goes:

Theme…or No Theme, Really
First birthday planning often starts with a theme.  I swirled a few concepts around in my head for a while but nothing seemed to be the right fit.  I finally tried to focus on the things Annazalie loves and it became oh-so-obvious: animals!  The girl loves some animals.  I remembered a deck of vintage 1950′s playing cards I swiped at the flea market for $1 about a year ago.  The incomplete deck featured eclectic animals and at the time I grabbed it because I thought that one day I may have a use for those cute graphics.

Invitations
I came across a fabulous vintage-inspired invitation by Loralee Lewis on Pinterest.  Since I was using the graphics from a deck of cards, I knew I had to create my own invite.  Her invites provided my layout inspiration and I went from there.  I scanned the playing cards in, removed the backgrounds and sent these puppies through my home printer.  Not fancy, but it worked.

Birthday Cake
I had my heart set on a cake from a bakery in my hometown.  Their recipe certainly takes the cake with an almond-flavored base and buttercream frosting. Simplicity was the name of the game and when I saw the fondant bow option I was in love.

• Cake by Creative Cakes by Rene {Sorry to be the bearer of bad news…but word on the street is they’re closing.  Excuse me while I compose myself.}
• Homemade cupcakes {I opted to make 2 dozen cupcakes in addition to the cake so that we could save some pennies and go for a smaller cake.  I cheated and used box mix for the base – 1 dozen devil’s food cake chocolate and 1 dozen strawberry.}
• Cupcake wrappers Michael’s
• Cupcake icing Cream cheese frosting recipe from an old Southern Living magazine. Decorating compliments of a large, smooth tip decorating nozzle.

Menu
With a lunchtime party I wanted to offer enough food to make a meal but not go overboard.  We didn’t offer a ton of variety since we were expecting around 50 friends and family, making quantity a priority.  I underestimated how much time everything would take the morning of and I got pretty behind. The good news is we had 2 insanely productive and willing grandmothers standing by to step in and whip everything into shape!

• Chicken salad croissants {Store bought mini croissants + homemade chicken salad.  My mom taught me to make chicken salad and it’s super simple: boil and shred as many chicken breasts as you need, mix with 1/2 Duke’s mayonnaise + 1/2 Miracle Whip until preferred consistency, add a few squirts of mustard and a few dashes of celery salt, salt, pepper + white sugar until the taste is right. How’s that for precision?}
• Spinach dip in hawaiian bread bowls {Spinach dip recipe minus the water chestnuts because I think they’re gross + hollowed out bread bowls with extra bread for dunking}
• Cheese balls with crackers {2 options: Armaretto cheesecake & pineapple, both from mixes}
• Pink popcorn {I was inspired by this awesome recipe I found on Pinterest. Then I got lazy + cheap and used melted pink chocolate and popcorn we had on hand. Not the best outcome, but it worked.}
• Pasta Salad
• Drinks {sweet tea, pink lemonade, coffee + iced water}

Decorations
This was the really fun part!  I found myself drifting away from the animal theme for whatever reason, so while the graphics from the invites were woven in through the favors and signage, they didn’t play a large role in the decorations.

• Tablescape {Thank you, Pinterest, for teaching me that word!  So fun. I headed over to my favorite local fabric store and picked out two coordinating fabrics to use for the table. I was able to iron the edges under instead of sewing anything so as to use the fabric for future homemade gifts. I found the white tablecloth at Tuesday Morning about a year ago and it’s been put to many a good use.}
• Silhouette Art {My dad treated me to having Annazalie’s silhouette hand cut by a guy at the NC State Fair back in September. The silhouette was black and I was interested in a more subdued look, so I traced the image and colored it grey, printing it on our home printer.  I used two frames I found at the flea market and taped fabric to the wall behind the frames.  I’m planning to paint the frames white, swap out the fabric and use this in a different room year-round.}
• Serving trays {An assortment of items I’ve found over the years at Goodwill, random flea markets and TJ Maxx.}
• Pennant banner {There are lots of tutorials floating around out there, but I just printed some digital paper I downloaded a while back at Moo & Puppy on our home printer and glued it to ribbon.  A more frugal option than using fabric for something we didn’t plan to reuse down the road.}
• Tissue Pom Poms {My new favorite thing!  These guys pack a big punch for pennies.  I used this tutorial.}
• Flowers {I picked a few packets of whatever this white stuff is from Harris Teeter.  It’s not baby’s breath, but something similar. True story: the vases are still spread throughout our home and the blossoms have dried beautifully. I expect they’ll last all summer!}
• Highchair {The highchair is usually a focus at a first birthday party and I knew I wanted it to be special.  The highchair we use for Annazalie was mine when I was a wee one, so that’s pretty cool.  I ordered one of those globe balloons – Shop Sweet Lulu sells them – and was super excited to have a simple highchair decoration and call it good.  I didn’t do my research as I should have and at the last minute realized it’s almost impossible to find someone willing to fill them with helium.  So, into the drawer Mr. Globe went and to the grocery store floral section Papa Knutson went.}
• Drink table {Mason jars from Walmart. Paper straws from Sweet Estelle’s – she’s great and is happy to put together custom listings if you need different quantities. Paper lanterns from Michael’s – the pack included two other colors and I’m saving them all for use in Annazalie’s room down the road. Double-duty, baby!}

Favors

• The alligator made her return to bid our guests farewell with baby food jars filled with hot chocolate mix and mini marshmallows. I spray painted the lids with paint leftover from the pigs I painted for her nursery.

Activities

• The Time Capsule that Wasn’t {Let’s start with the major minor fail, shall we? I got the idea to do a time capsule of sorts from this post at Young House Love. I set out cards and pens for attendees to write a note for Annazalie with the intention of her opening it on her 16th birthday…a way for her to get a glimpse of the party that she wouldn’t remember.  It didn’t really catch on and I was too busy to make a scene about it, so I believe we got 2 total.  But cherish, we will, those 2!}
• Cake Smashing {We put the time for the cake smashing on the invitation – that way people could decide if they wanted to be present for that portion.  So glad we did!  We set Annazalie up with a cupcake of her very own and homegirl ate. it all. ALL OF IT.  Except for a big hunk o’ frosting Jon scooped up in a trophy parenting moment while I was trying not to hyperventilate as the cupcake crumbs made their way onto the floor and in her hair.}
• Cake Smashing Outfit {I wanted to whip up a outfit for Annazalie to change into so that we wouldn’t have to worry about her getting cake on her dress.  I used the onesie tutorial from Lil Blue Boo and the no-sew tutu tutorial from Skip to My Lou.}
• Skyping  {What a gift Skype is!  Annazalie’s Aunt Jennifer and Cousin Gentri in Tulsa were able to join the cake smashing virtually.  I’m not sure that it went as smoothly as it could have on our end, but we managed to set up the computer by her highchair and it did the trick.}
• Gifts  {Although we put Your Presence is Gift Enough on the invitation, we still ended up with lots of goodies for our girl – which, of course, we were thankful for!  We had planned to not have a formal present opening since we intended for gifts not to be a big deal, but as the party was winding down I could tell that some friends with gifts would like to see Annazalie’s reaction to their finds.  So we did a little low-key gift opening and it worked great. Flexibility!}

Photography
Quite possibly the best thing we did was arrange for our family photographer, Ashley Perry Blevins, to be present.  We planned to do quarterly photos for Annazalie the first year of her life, so we combined her 1 year photos with her birthday party.  Ashley arrived a few minutes early in time for us to snap a few photos in the backyard and then she captured the party oh-so-beautifully.  She is insanely talented and we are incredibly thankful to have her.  All photos in this post are from Ashley – I didn’t even have to pick up my camera once, allowing Jon and I the freedom to soak up the experience.

Whew. World’s longest post DONE.  Hope this little post helps someone down the road plan a smashing first birthday party. It was a ton of fun and I learned quite a bit from my mistakes.  Cheers to celebrating life!